


Too Weak to Fly

by Woland



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Crowley Whump (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I got this one scene of an idea in my head and decided to write a story around it, M/M, Post-Armageddon, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Temporary Character Death, Temporary Loss of Powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:28:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22211812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woland/pseuds/Woland
Summary: Crowley said Heaven and Hell would leave them alone for a while. And they did, for nearly ten years.  But they are back now, with vengeance....
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 141
Kudos: 176





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know, I still have all these other WIPs that are waiting in the wings, but this idea won't leave me alone and writing it down is the only way to get rid of it. It's not terribly plotty, it's mostly an excuse to whump, really. Be warned :)

Cold cocoa is disgusting.

The angel grimaces at the taste, setting the mug back on the table with a heavy sigh. Looks forlornly at the open book in his lap. 

He forgot. Again. Got carried away with his reading and let his drink get ice cold. And now he can’t do anything about it. 

Timidly he raises his gaze Heavenward, gives an experimental snap of his fingers.

Nothing. Of course there’d be nothing. He was told as much in the letter. Still, he keeps foolishly hoping the punishment would be lifted sooner than promised. 

No such luck.

The letter appeared on his desk four days ago – an official Heavenly missive sealed with a golden sigil, written in Gabriel’s familiar flowery hand. The notice of temporary removal of powers as punishment decided upon through mutual agreement between Heaven and Hell for the two traitors responsible for the failed Armageddon. Seven days they were supposed to last without their powers. One week. If they managed to get through that week without getting discorporated, both Heaven and Hell pledged to leave the two of them alone for the rest of eternity. If not… Well, the “if not” did not bear thinking about.

In all honesty, except for the terrible inconvenience factor, Aziraphale didn’t think the punishment was all that dire. Of course, he was going to have to be pay more attention to what he was doing (he has already learned the hard way that bumping into a side table while carrying a cup of steaming hot cocoa could lead to some rather unpleasant sensations and a quite unfortunate stain on his favorite (only!) pair of trousers). And he was going to have to remember to look both ways before crossing the street, because simply willing the cars to move around him would no longer be an option. But that could be a good thing, a blessing in disguise, so to speak. Teach him to be more cautious, more aware of his environment – something the demon has often nagged him about. Besides, it was only for a week. Seven days of this forced disruption, and they will free to enjoy the rest of their existence wholly unbothered.

Crowley, who came round the bookshop four days ago with a similar letter, printed in black runny letters on a mildew-stained parchment, seemed to disagree. 

_“They wanted us destroyed, angel. Not just discorporated,_ desssstroyed _! And we went and pissed them off even more by not dying.”_

_Crowley was pacing around the bookshop like a caged tiger, his expression more troubled than Aziraphale had seen in years. Since… since… since that moment on the tarmac of the Tadfield Airforce Base when Satan was about to rip his way into this world. The memory made him uneasy, and he gripped his cocoa mug tighter to hide the traitorous tremor of his hands._

_“You said they’d leave us alone for a while,” he reminded the demon._

_“They did,” Crowley brushed off his objection with a sharp waive of one skinny hand, “for nearly ten years. Probably trying to come up with a way to best punish us. And you can’t honestly believe that thisss – a slap on the wrist is the best they could do.” He shook his head, smiled, grim. “There’s a catch, angel. I know there is. Can’t be that easy.”_

Aziraphale didn’t say anything then, merely frowned worriedly at the demon over the rim of his mug, when the latter informed him of his plan to investigate this so-called punishment further. But he did obey his friend’s urgent plea to _“lock the doors, don’t go out, don’t let anyone in, wait until I return.”_

That was four days ago. And Aziraphale’s been going out of his mind with boredom and inactivity. One would think that being left alone with nothing but his books for company would be nothing short of heavenly delight for the angel. To be able to read without interruptions, without meddling customers he needed to steer away from his precious books. And yet somehow being a virtual prisoner in his own shop, without a drop of magic to color the monotony of it all, without Crowley, whose presence has become a cherished, welcome constant in his life since the failed Armageddon, made the experience quite sour. Moreover, with day four of no news from the demon, boredom and inactivity were unavoidably joined by a niggling itch of worry.

A screech of the breaks outside the bookshop drags his attention away from his ruined cocoa, and he looks up at the window, a relieved smile gracing his lips as he spots the familiar silhouette of the Bentley parked haphazardly by the curb. _Finally!_

He rises out of his chair, lingers indecisively a few steps from the door, torn between the urge to run forward to greet the demon and the desire not to appear too eager, too longing. And then startles backwards, stunned, as the door flies open with a glass-shattering bang, and Crowley bursts inside, uncharacteristically disheveled and wild-eyed, his sunglasses nowhere to be seen.

“Angel!” he calls out, swallowing the distance between them in two large strides, “We’re leaving, let’s go!”

“Leaving?” Aziraphale blinks at him in confusion, gently trying to extricate his sleeve from where the demon gripped it with clamp-like force. “Where? What for?”

“Anywhere you wanna go, angel,” Crowley tugs on Aziraphale’s sleeve, dragging him insistently toward the door, “I don’t really give a fuck, as long as we’re out of London. Now!”

“Wait, wait, WAIT!” Aziraphale nearly trips over his own feet as he tries to keep pace with the clearly agitated demon. “Wait, Crowley, please. We can’t just leave, it’s–”

“We can and we will. Now, angel!” And they are outside already, and Crowley releases his arm in favor of gesturing sharply toward the waiting car. “Get in!”

Aziraphale digs his heels in. “I will do no such thing,” he insists with a stubborn jut of his chin. Folds his arms primly across his chest. “Not until you explain to me the meaning of all this.”

Crowley groans, loud and dramatic, rolling his eyes for good measure. “The sssstupid catch, angel,” he hisses out hurriedly, arms windmilling in time with his words. “I told you there’d be a catch, and I was right. They put a hit on us, angel. Your lot and mine.”

“A hit?” Aziraphale echoes, brows pulled together in honest confusion. “What does–”

“It means they hired a bunch of trigger-happy humans to hunt us down for a prize,” Crowley snaps, pulling a badly crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. “Here.” He unfolds the paper, shoves it under Aziraphale’s nose. “Found this printout on an idiot that tried to ambush me outside the apartment.”

The angel stares blankly at the crumpled paper, the printed words swimming before him, hazy and terrifying like in a bad dream. It’s an ad, an announcement for a real-world hunt with a sizable prize for the winning party. And grainy pictures of him and Crowley with instructions on where to email the photographic proof of the kill in order to claim the prize.

“This… um… the man you took this from, is he…”

The demon winces, dropping his gaze. “He tried to discorporate me, angel,” his voice sounds flat, hollow with regret, his shoulders hunched as if in anticipation of a blow. “I had no choice.”

Aziraphale nods, swallowing past an impossibly dry throat. He knows Crowley doesn’t enjoy killing, never has. Knows he needs to reassure the demon that he isn’t angry at him, that he understands. All he manages is a strained, rasped out, “of course, dear.”

Crowley’s jaw ticks at the words, but his shoulders relax minutely and he looks back at Aziraphale, eyes blazing with urgency. “There are more of them out there, angel. Many, many more. I had at least ten following me over the last two days. I managed to throw them off, got them all chasing shadows up in Highgate Woods. But there are others.” He grits his teeth, mouth twisting in an odd mix of disdain and muted fury. “There are others, and we can’t stop them all, not without our powers.”

“Right.” Aziraphale feels lightheaded all of a sudden. “And if they manage to kill… _discorporate_ us…”

“Heaven and Hell get to have us back in their clutches,” Crowley confirms, echoing Aziraphale’s thoughts, “and I doubt they’d ever let us out again.” He jerks his head toward the Bentley. “Three more days, angel. We just gotta lay low for three more days. Come on, get in the car. Please.”

Aziraphale sighs, absently stuffing the ad into the pocket of his coat. Gestures weakly at the door of the bookshop. “I should at least grab a few things,” he murmurs. “I need–”

“No time, angel!” Crowley’s hand is back on his shoulder, impatient and tugging. “Just get in the goddamn–” 

He cuts himself off abruptly, his eyes widening at something behind Aziraphale, and then, suddenly, both of Crowley’s hands are digging into his shoulders, and he twists them both around, rough, violent almost. There’s a sound Aziraphale hears – a muffled pop, like the backfire of an engine, and Crowley’s body jerks sharply, an invisible force punching him forward into Aziraphale’s chest. There’s a brief moment of impossible, deafening silence with reality itself frozen in numb, horrified weightlessness, where the only things Aziraphale is aware of is the uncomfortable, spasming pressure of Crowley’s fingers on his shoulders, the oddly frightened, rabbit-like thudding of his own corporation’s heart, and the demon’s eyes – a terrifying, acid yellow with pupils tightened to near-invisible strips with pain.

A breath, and time lurches onward, and Crowley sags against him with a raspy groan, his hands sliding limply off Aziraphale’s shoulders just as the angel’s arms wrap themselves, desperate and trembling, around the demon’s suddenly boneless form.   
  



	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“Lucky I taught’ya… t’drive…”

Crowley sits slumped against the passenger side door, head resting against the glass as he watches Aziraphale from under half-lowered eyelids, and Aziraphale tightens his grip on the steering wheel to distract himself from the way those eyelids flutter, struggling to stay open even at half-mast, from the dark stain spreading steadily across the leather upholstery behind the demon’s back, from the pained struggle of each breath, each panted out word…

_“Lucky...”_

The idea to give Aziraphale driving lessons was blurted out by Crowley one night over the third bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape, two years into their post-Armageddon existence. _“It’ll be fun, angel, you’ll see,”_ he had slurred drunkenly, and Aziraphale was just drunk enough to agree. They did have fun, in fact – once Aziraphale got over his fear of wrapping Crowley’s cherished automobile around the nearest tree (and once Crowely got over _his_ fear of the same), and it turned out to be a rather pleasant bonding experience for the two of them.

He thinks back to Crowley’s sudden boneless weight in his arms, to the sticky wetness of Crowley’s blood on his fingers, to the agonized cry that tore out of the demon’s throat when Aziraphale threw them both into the waiting Bentley, his panicked brain thinking of nothing else but to get them both out of there, now, now, _now_ ….

“Not ssssure disss…sscorporating ‘n’a car crash… ssss’any better, angel…”

The carefully disguised tension in the slurred out words cuts off the swirling stream of frenzied thoughts, and he blinks, forcing his attention back to the here and now, to the scenery along the side of the road that’s zooming by much faster than he had intended. Briefly he glances down at the needle of the speedometer, frowning when he finds it pushing well past 100. _Perhaps he really should slow down before they crash and find themselves discorporated after all._

He eases his foot slightly off the gas pedal, forces his fingers to relax a fraction from the death grip they have on the steering wheel.

“I’ve seen you go quite a bit faster than that, dear boy,” he deflects primly, keeping his gaze trained on the roadway ahead, careful not to look at Crowley’s pale (so frighteningly pale) face. “And, given our current circumstances, the sooner we get to our destination, the better.”

He can feel Crowley’s gaze on him, silent and scrutinizing, and he wriggles his shoulders, disguising the uncomfortable urge to squirm under the need to shift his grip on the wheel.

“What’ssss the destination?”

The words are quiet, unconcerned, but there’s a tone to them that tells Aziraphale that Crowey knows the answer, or, at least suspects. In any case, there’s no point in hiding it.

“Tadfield,” he murmurs, shooting the demon a furtive, sideways glance.

There’s another beat of silence, then Crowley’s hand reaches for him, ice-cold fingers brushing along his wrist before it falls limply back down to rest on the seat between them.

“Pull over.”

“I rather think not, my dear. We don’t really have time to–”

“Pull… over, angel.” There’s a harshness to Crowley’s voice, an emphatic insistence dampened only slightly by the strained edge of pain that tinges the words.

Aziraphale complies.

“Crowley,” he begins, twisting in his seat to face the demon. And, oh, it’s a mistake, a big, big mistake. Because now he can’t help but note it all – the minute twitches of the jaw muscles tightened almost beyond their limit, the alarming gray of the sweat-dotted skin, the fevered intensity of the pain-glazed, weary gaze. And he can’t help the way his needless heart clenches in fear.

“Ssss’a bad idea.” The demon pauses, bone-dry lips parted as he drags in a breath that seems somehow to require an extraordinary amount of effort. “You _know_ it is.”

“It’s the best option we’ve got, Crowley,” Aziraphale rolls out his argument, hurriedly, trying his best to keep the building panic out of his voice. “Anathema’s a witch, a hereditary one. She has the ability to see energy patterns within living things, and that means she should be able to influence them. She may not be able to heal you outright, but, with my guidance, she might, at least, stop further damage and, perhaps, mend your corporation enough for you to last until we get our powers back.”

There’s a twist to Crowley’s mouth – worried and unhappy, disappointed almost. Disappointed in him, Aziraphale realizes with a start.

“They are human, angel,” he breathes out finally, disappointment spilling into his gaze when he adds a pointed, quieter, “and they have kidssss now.”

Ah, yes, the kids. Twin boys and a girl three years their junior. He and Crowley have been invited down to Tadfield for every significant celebratory occasion involving the newest offspring in the great Nutter line, and Crowley has proudly embraced the title of “unca Cowly” that had been bestowed upon him by the youngest Device during their last visit. 

“I have not forgotten,” Aziraphale insists, frowning at the silent reproach in the demon’s stare. And he hasn’t, _despite_ the near-overwhelming panic that has gripped him the moment that Crowley collapsed in his arms in front of the bookshop, and that has only grown since in light of the demon’s rapidly worsening condition. 

“I haven’t, my dear. But… well….” He twists in his seat, throwing a worried glance at the road behind them, searching for any sign of their pursuers. The road has been empty so far, but that meant nothing. Those people have already tracked them down before; they will do so again – it’s only a matter of time. Time they can’t afford to waste. 

He looks back at Crowley, who has sagged even further into the seat in the few short minutes that they’ve been talking, his paper-thin eyelids drooping down to leave a barely perceptible slit of yellow.

“Do you have another suggestion?” he asks, even though he knows he shouldn’t, that it’s a terrifically bad idea to give a desperate, injured demon a chance to voice a likely equally desperate plan.

He’s right, of course. And when Crowley laboriously raises his gaze back to him, divulging his plan on a rattle of an exhale, Aziraphale feels as though ichor itself has turned ice-cold in his veins.

“You let me out here and you leave.”

He can’t even muster a breath to respond, too numb with the horror and shock of it, before Crowley ploughs on, resolute.

“You _leave_ , angel. Get… get out of London and–”

“And _what_ , Crowley?” Aziraphale snaps, having found his voice again. “ _What?!_ I run off and leave you behind to die? _That’s_ your plan?”

“Yesssss.”

There’s a quiet, unruffled certainty in the demon’s voice, a calm acceptance of the doomed that makes the river of cold inside Aziraphale crackle and break, splitting off into a myriad of razor-sharp icicles that spear and stab straight through his heart.

“That’s not going to happen.”

Aziraphale turns away from him, hands clenching once more around the wheel because he’s shaking so hard he feels as if he would come apart if he has nothing to hold on to. He’s surprised his voice was as steady as it had sounded in his ears.

There’s an odd sort of pressure in his chest, like an iron fist squeezing around his corporation’s heart and lungs. Almost as if he’s been shot along with Crowley, although he knows that to not be true. It’s uncomfortable, painful even. It makes it hard for him to take a breath. Makes his eyes water for some inexplicable reason. He gasps, blinking harshly to clear the watery veil that washes out the road in front of them.

“I’m… I’m not–”

“They’re coming, angel. And I can dissstract them.” Cold fingers brush his wrist again, tentative, apologetic almost. “Long enough for you to–”

“NO!”

He rounds on Crowley, trembling with fear and fury. Dimly he thinks that if he still had his powers, the whirlwind of emotions he feels right now would have had him virtually blazing with Grace; that he could have hurt Crowley even more; that his lack of powers was probably a blessing now that he can barely control the extent of his outburst.

He forces himself to breathe, to let go of the steering wheel long enough to grasp Crowley’s hand – his true, his only anchor. His grip is painful, he knows that much. Can see it from the way Crowley flinches minutely, his eyebrows tightening with discomfort. But the demon makes no move to pull away, stays perfectly still beside him, yellow eyes watching him with a knowing sorrow.

“I’m not… _leaving_ you, Crowley,” he says finally, when he feels steady enough to do so. “You can’t ask me that.” He takes another breath, swallows harshly against a threatening prickle of tears. “I will call Anathema, explain the situation to her. They’ll be warned of our coming, they can get the children out of the house, take any other necessary precautions. But Crowley…” His voice trembles again, forcing him to stop. He presses his lips together, his grip on Crowley’s hand tightening involuntarily as he struggles once more to steady himself. “She’s the only chance we’ve got,” he breathes out, his eyes filling once again, “the only chance _you’ve_ got, and I…”

“Angel…” 

Crowley’s voice is soft, so, _so_ unbearably soft and regretful, like he’s already accepted this, has given up. It makes Aziraphale want to scream.

He reaches out with his other hand instead, places it reverently against the gaunt pale cheek.

“I’m not letting you die, Crowley,” he tells him with all the fervor he’s capable of. “Not after everything we’ve been through. Not with everything I still want to… to experience with you.” He stumbles once more, his breath hitching. Leans across the seat to press his dry, trembling lips against the demon’s. 

“I can’t lose you,” he whispers, desperate, urgent. “Do you understand? I… I can’t…”

There’s a feeble movement against his palm, a nod, a ghost of a breath, “I underssstand.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Anathema is waiting for them by the gate, face pinched with grim worry, hands clasped together in front of her in a nervous knot. She steps forward as Aziraphale parks the car, helps the angel wrangle the barely conscious demon out of the passenger seat. 

“Come on,” she urges once they’ve got Crowley settled between them – a will-less, gangly weight across their shoulders. “Let’s get you both inside, so I can get that wound looked at, okay?”

“The children?” Aziraphale asks as they begin a cautiously hurried trek toward the cottage.

“They’ll be staying with the Youngs for now,” Anathema responds with an awkward half-shrug, careful not to dislodge Crowley’s arm. “Newt, too. It’s easier that way.”

_Safer_ , Aziraphale hears, though she doesn’t say the word out loud.

The door to the cottage has been conveniently left open, and Anathema swiftly brings them inside, leading them past the ever-cluttered kitchen into the adjacent bedroom.

“Set him down here.” She points at the large metal frame bed that takes up over half of the room. Ducks out from under Crowley’s arm, letting Aziraphale take on all of his weight, while she goes to pull up a small bow-legged table that holds a small basin filled with water and an assortment of medical supplies from a standard first-aid kit.

Aziraphale shifts his hold, trying his best not to jostle his friend, as he wraps his arm gently around the demon’s waist and begins to shuffle toward the bed. But Crowley stiffens suddenly in his grip, slender trembling fingers grasping Aziraphale’s wrist, calling him to a halt.

“A-adam…,” comes the breathless murmur of a reminder, and Aziraphale sighs, his shoulders sagging with defeat.

“Let’s sit you down first, darling.” 

Carefully, ever so carefully he helps settle Crowley on the edge of the bed. Sits down beside him, arm looped around the demon for his own reassurance as much as for the other’s support, as Crowley sinks heavily into his side, the hollow of his cheek resting against Aziraphale’s shoulder.

The angel spares him a glance, his heart clenching as he takes in the unhealthy cadaveric gray of the other’s complexion, the bloodless lips, parted to suck in labored, panting breaths, his eyes – a spilled over sea of molten lava, dulled by exhaustion and pain. They are running out of time. _Crowley_ is running out of time. He knows this, a certainty just as palpable as the minute tremors that rack the gaunt frame ensconced within his grasp. They shouldn’t do this, he thinks. Shouldn’t waste what little time they’ve got. But he had promised Crowley, he had agreed, and it is the right thing to do. But he wishes, so fervently wishes, that doing the right thing didn’t feel so terribly wrong.

Crowley’s fingers tighten a fraction on Aziraphale’s wrist, pain-dulled yellow eyes surveying him intently as though the demon somehow managed to glimpse the panicked, backtracking direction of his thoughts. Aziraphale nods, forces a crooked twitch of a smile in response before moving his gaze over to where Anathema stands ripping open a pack of sterile bandages in preparation. 

“Would you mind calling Adam, dear girl?”

“I already did,” Anathema responds distractedly. “Right after I got off the phone with you. He’s on his way. Driving down from uni.” She glances at her wristwatch. “Should be here soon. We can wait for him if you like, or–”

“That won’t be necessary,” Aziraphale interrupts her, his voice tight. “But if you wouldn’t mind calling him again, please. Now.”

She hesitates a moment, a look of troubled suspicion on her face as she surveys the two of them. She picks up the phone nevertheless, dials the number. “What do you want me to tell him?”

“If you could just turn on one of those extra loud functions…”

“Ssssspeaker,” Crowley supplies breathlessly beside him, and he nods his thanks with a fleeting glance to the side.

“Speaker, yes, if you could turn that on, please.”

Anathema taps obligingly on the screen, places the now loudly ringing phone on the table before them, and Aziraphale takes a deep, fortifying breath, preparing himself just as Adam’s distracted voice comes over the line.

“Anathema? Hey, tell them I’m almost there, okay? You can start without me and I’ll–”

“You’re on speaker, Adam,” Anathema cuts in, skewering Aziraphale with her unnervingly penetrating stare. “Aziraphale wants to tell you something.”

“Uncle Z?” There’s hesitation in Adam’s voice, an undeniable strain of worry. “Is uncle Crowley…?”

“Are you inside the village limits yet?” Aziraphale interrupts, forcibly ignoring the question that threatens to send him into a tailspin of nauseating fear. There's no time for that now, they need to hurry. 

“I just passed Mr. Tyler’s house, yeah. Like I said, I’m almost–.”

“Thank you, my boy, that will do.” He feels Crowley’s head shift against his shoulder – a minuscule nod of encouragement. _Keep going._ Yes, he needs to keep going or he will lose his resolve. Will beg Adam to ignore him and rush here as fast as his car will take him. 

He sucks in a breath, small and woefully inadequate for a being that shouldn’t need to breathe at all. Forces himself to plough on. “I’m afraid I’m going to need you to pull over now.”

“You what?” The near-outraged bafflement in Adam’s voice is echoed in Anathema’s shocked gasp of “What are you doing?”

He looks away from the wide-eyed judgment of her stare. Focuses on Crowley’s hand instead where it clings to his own, on the long slender fingers that tremble lightly against the skin of his wrist.... _I can do this_ , he tells himself. _I have to do this. I promised._

“The people that are hunting us,” he begins, his own voice feeling as unsteady as the weight of Crowley’s fingers on his wrist, “they are not very… discreet about their methods. There’s quite a good possibility that innocent bystanders could get hurt, and that is a risk that we simply cannot take.”

Not _“we”_ , he corrects himself with brutal reproach. _Crowley_. It was Crowley who reminded him of his true nature when he had become practically senseless with the fear of losing him. Crowley who insisted, breathless with pain and the exhaustion of an unnecessary argument, that Aziraphale would never forgive himself if he allowed humans he cared about to be hurt to save a demon’s corporation. 

It didn’t matter that this particular demon meant more to him than all of the cosmos. Didn’t matter that for Crowley to lose his corporation this time around with Hell desperate to get its vengeful hands on him would mean a fate much worse than death. None of that mattered… because Crowley was right. Crowley was right and Aziraphale hated himself for it.

“Crowley believes…” There’s the barest hint of pressure against the inside of his wrist and Aziraphale corrects himself with a resigned huff, “ _We_ believe that you might be able to hide Tadfield from them, to make it appear unremarkable, as it were. Not worthy of note.”

“Make them lose interest in this place,” Adam muses over the speaker.

“Precisely. Do you think you could do that?”

The speaker crackles with a reluctant breath – not quite a rejection, not quite an agreement. “I suppose so, but… shouldn’t we get uncle Crowley sorted first?”

He can’t help it, the pleadingly hopeful glance he throws Crowley’s way at these words. But he knows the answer to Adam’s question. Knows it even before he sees the rueful twitch of Crowley’s lips, the tiny shake of his head. It was the answer they both agreed on – an implacable caveat to Crowley’s acceptance of Aziraphale’s plan. 

_“Th-think about it, angel. Thisss, all of thisss will be pointlesssss if they find ussss again. You know I’m right.”_

He nods, heaving out a sigh that feels like it’s ripped something deep inside him on the way out. Leans in to brush a dry-lipped kiss along the pale clammy skin of the demon’s temple.

“I’m afraid not, dear boy.” 

“If I do this, if I create a… a shield over Tadfield… I won’t be… I won’t have enough power to…” And Adam sounds so young all of a sudden, so very much like the lost, frightened 11-year-old boy that he and Crowley met all those years ago. And Aziraphale wants nothing more than to reassure him, but the only reassurance he can offer is as empty as Heaven over the last few millennia. 

“Sssss’alright, Adam, we got thisss,” Crowley cuts in unexpectedly, his voice stronger somehow than the last time the angel heard it, and Aziraphale can't help a flare of unabashed admiration and love for the lengths this demon, _his_ demon, is willing to go to to reassure the boy.

Crowley pays for it a mere instant later. Chokes on a sudden harsh-sounding breath and twists in his arms, and it’s all Aziraphale can do to keep a tight hold on him as the demon presses his face into Aziraphale’s coat to muffle a series of wet, rattling coughs that seem to tear him from the inside out. The coat, when Crowley finally pulls away, is stained with bright red blood.

“Crowley’s right, my dear,” Aziraphale forces himself to say, though his hands feel numb and he is shaking so hard he thinks Adam might be able to hear it in his voice. He hugs Crowley tighter instead, tries to steady his voice as much as he can. “Anathema and I will handle things on our end. You just… you focus on stopping these men.” He is pointedly not looking at Anathema as he says this, but it doesn’t stop him from feeling the heated weight of her glare.

Silence crackles over the speaker, brittle, hesitant, worried, and Aziraphale holds his breath as he waits for Adam’s response, hoping for a “yes” even as he secretly, desperately wishes for a “no”. But mostly, mostly he just wants him to answer and get it over with, because Crowley won’t allow himself to be treated until they get this sorted out, and with every passing second, with every fresh drop of blood that soaks into the hopelessly ruined jacket, their window of opportunity is rapidly slamming shut.

“Alright,” Adam responds finally, grim and quiet. “Gimme a minute. I’ll text you when I’m done.”

“Thank you,” Aziraphale breathes out past an ever-growing spiky lump in his throat. “Thank you.”

The connection clicks off, and Anathema reaches over to pick up the phone. Watches the two of them with a pinched, reproachful expression. “You were the one who asked me to call in Adam,” she accuses, the undisguised worry in her voice muting the low undercurrent of disapproval. “You said we’d need his powers to–”

“I changed my mind, alright?!” he exclaims, feeling his composure crumble. The hold he has on Crowley has got to be beyond uncomfortable right now, but he can’t bring himself to loosen it. “I reviewed our options and I changed my mind.” And he absolutely, positively cannot bring himself to look at Anathema now. Can’t possibly hope to defend himself if she continues to pry.

Turns out he doesn’t need to.

“Don’t blame him.” Crowley’s voice is barely above a whisper now, a rasped out, broken hiss of a breath that spills past the blood-spattered lips. “Wasss my desssision. My ch-choisssse.”

The phone dings an incoming message, interrupting whatever Anathema was about to say, and she lets it go with nothing more than an unhappy frown. Glances briefly at her screen. “It’s Adam. He’s done it.”

And to Crowley those words must have been like a permission to let go, for in the next instant the shuddering tension seeps out of his body – swiftly, all at once, and Aziraphale cries out in alarm as the demon grows suddenly, terrifyingly limp in his grasp. And his voice shakes with traitorous fear when he begs Anathema to “Hurry, _please_ , hurry!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not quite happy with this chapter, but I got it to where I wanted the story to go, so there's that, at least. 😬


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed, so, please, excuse any mistakes (hopefully there aren't any exceptionally glaring ones 😬)

Chapter 4

  


Aziraphale is a dreamer. Always has been. 

  


When the uncaringly cold and soullessly barren landscapes of blinding white threatened to overwhelm his senses, he dreamed of another Heaven, the one from long ago. With endless cerulean skies, clean and pure, as yet untouched by any notion of storms. With gentle, caressing rays of the sun that streaked down to them from the flawless firmament to bathe them all in its comforting warmth. With fields of verdurous grass, soft as the down feathers and interspersed with brilliant splashes of color – flowers, Her first experimental creations that didn’t even have a name yet. 

  


When the archangels mocked and taunted him, their cold, harsh voices and abrasive words leaving deep weeping gouges on his cowering essence, he thought of a different voice, a bit raspy, a bit sibilant, but brilliantly, achingly warm, good-naturedly sarcastic and, above all, kind. So, _so_ very kind. 

  


When he wanted to escape the disdainful judgment of Gabriel’s stare, the crass, empty blankness of Sandalphon’s, the dark suspicion of Uriel’s, or the frigid indifference of Michael’s, he dreamed of the eyes the color of honeyed amber, sparkling with mischief and mirth. Lively and vibrant. Warm.

  


It helped. Helped him stay above it all those millennia. Helped him cling firmly to the tiny flotsam of hope and love in the sea of murderous apathy and dark despair.

  


It wasn’t helping him now.

  


Still he tries.

He thinks of the quaint old cottage in South Downs that he and Crowley looked at a couple weeks ago. A cozy little brick house half-buried in the untended greenery and huddled on the edge of a brilliant blue sea that created a stark contrast against the blinding white of the nearby Seven Sisters cliffs. 

They were going to move in at the end of the month. Close up the bookshop, leave behind the Mayfair apartment and settle all of their combined belongings within the welcoming walls of their new joint home. There was a garage for the Bentley, a living room with an old-fashioned brick-laid fireplace and wood-trimmed windows that provided them with a perfect view of the sea where it breaks upon the chalky white cliffs. A small but well-equipped kitchen that could easily fit a nice little table for two. Outside there was a decent-size, if badly neglected, garden, and Crowley was going to get it back in proper shape, add his plants to the ones already there and set up a small greenhouse for those of his plants that were too delicate to withstand the brutal, biting cold of English winters. And there was an extra bedroom that Aziraphale was going to convert into a library with rows of bookcases running along the entire length of the walls to converge at the far end of the room where the hauntingly familiar eagle-shaped lectern from Crowley’s apartment would stand, spreading its wings in the eternal offer of protection (as Crowley himself had protected him and the books a century ago in the ruins of a bombed church).

It was going to be beautiful. It was going to be perfect. And it was going to be theirs. They were going to be happy there. 

  


And Aziraphale tries to picture it now. The warm darkness of the summer night outside the open window, the soft splashing of the waves against the shore. The living room bathed in the amber glow of the fireplace. A pair of wine glasses on a coffee table, still half full, the burgundy red liquid made all the darker by the surrounding shadows. And the two of them, lounging on the couch in the living room; the old couch, the one from Aziraphale’s bookshop, with its tartan pattern (outdated, according to Crowley; stylish, according to Aziraphale himself) and its well-worn but enticingly soft cushions. Crowley, draped over the entire length of it, all loose-limbed and impossibly relaxed, with his head resting in Aziraphale’s lap, where the angel is tucked comfortably against the arm of the couch. And Aziraphale carding his fingers through the soft fiery locks as the demon slowly drifts off to sleep….

  


The sound of a breath hitching in pain breaks upon the forced idyll of his thoughts, and he freezes, cursing his corporation’s all-too-human need to shift to keep one’s extremities from falling asleep. The perfect vision dissipates, morphing with cruel inexorability into the grim reality of the moment: the cramped little bedroom of the Jasmine Cottage, illuminated by the gentle light of a table lamp; the blood-stained mattress underneath him, the old-fashioned metal bed frame digging painfully into his back where he sits wedged uncomfortably against the headboard; and Crowley, rigid and trembling in his lap, the luxurious strands of auburn red hair now matted and sweat-soaked underneath his fingers.

  


It didn’t work. What he was hoping for. It didn’t work. Anathema, bless her soul, did her best with what was available to her. She managed to get the bullet out and stop the bleeding. She even managed to mend some of the damage to Crowley’s corporation, to reattach some of the broken strands of his energy pattern. 

  


But it wasn’t enough, it was never going to be enough. The damage was too great and they had waited too long. And no matter how hard Anathema tried, she couldn’t repair all of it. Not even with Aziraphale’s guidance. All she was doing was draining her own energy and causing Crowley more pain. And after hours upon hours of that torment, Aziraphale finally couldn’t take it anymore – the sight of Anathema’s exhaustion-wrought features and shaking hands and the poorly muffled sounds of Crowley’s growing distress. And so he reached out and gently pulled her hands away from where they hovered unsteadily over the open wound in the demon’s back. And he begged her to go rest.

  


_“You’re exhausted,”_ he had told her, desperately trying to keep his voice steady. _“You both are. Why don’t you sleep a bit, and we can try again in a few hours.”_

  


They both knew it was a lie, and the look she gave him was filled with so much guilt and sorrow that it nearly broke Aziraphale’s heart. Because it was never her fault, never her burden to carry. The failure was his and his alone – from dragging his feet outside the bookshop long enough for a hunter to take a shot at them to letting Crowley talk him into waiting for Adam to put up his shield. And he could now add upsetting his human friend to the ever-growing list of his failings. 

  


But Anathema was a smart, intuitive witch, and she understood what he was trying so very hard not to say. That he couldn’t stand watching the love of his life in so much pain anymore. That he had accepted defeat. That he wanted to spend however little time they had left alone with Crowley, just the two of them. So she nodded to him shakily and walked out, letting them be. And only the knowledge that he had to keep it together for Crowley’s sake prevented him from breaking down the moment the bedroom door closed behind her….

  


“I’m sorry, dear.” He turns his attention back to Crowley, traces the sharp cheekbone with the pad of his thumb, unable to mask the way it trembles against the waxen skin. “I’m so sorry.” The words feel useless on his tongue, an empty offer of contrition for causing his beloved even more unnecessary discomfort. It’s all he seems capable of lately. That and sitting by, watching helplessly as the love of his life slowly, inexorably slips away.

  


“S’alright, angel…” Dull yellow eyes blink sluggishly up at him, thin lips twitching in a poor facsimile of a reassuring smile. “Can’t expect you to stay still for so long.” 

  


And that was precisely the problem, wasn’t it. Because he _could_ stay still. Could remain in the same position for _days_ absorbed in a good book without any of his limbs stiffening up on him. But now, without his powers, no matter how hard he tries he can’t quite overcome the urge to ease some of the growing discomfort in his back and legs. And it’s only been hours. A few measly hours of sitting by and listening to Crowley’s labored, wheezing breaths, and praying, praying they don’t stop.

It’s bad enough that he is of no help to Crowley whatsoever without his powers, but he can’t even control his body long enough to provide him comfort without hurting him in the process. Useless. Entirely useless. Not even good enough as a blasted pillow!

  


He doesn’t realize he’s spoken out loud until he hears a faint huff of fond annoyance followed by a breathy but insistent, “Ssstop fretting, angel. You make a p…perfect pillow…. Couldn’t asssk for a better one.”

  


These words – Crowley’s stubborn attempt to cheer him up, despite the pain and the blood loss, despite the fear of what is yet to come – they make something crack deep inside Aziraphale’s chest, the dam holding back the ever-growing swell of emotions threatening to burst open and flood everything in its path. 

He looks down at the demon, his throat growing impossibly, dangerously tight at the undisguised concern in the pain-clouded gaze that meets his.

  


“Crowley, I’m so–”

  


“Tell me ‘bout… Edinburgh.”

  


“…What?” he stammers out, confusion momentarily slipping past the near-suffocating veil of sorrow and self-blame.

  


“Edinburgh…,” the demon repeats, urgent, fevered yellow staring intently up at him from the haggard, ashen face. “Your firssst temptation. How did…how did it go? You never ssss... said. T-tell me, angel.”

  


Aziraphale stares mutely at him for a heartbeat longer, brow furrowed in puzzlement, and then it hits him, the reason behind that wild-eyed urgency, that seemingly ill-timed curiosity about a four thousand year old inconsequential event. Distraction. That silly old serpent, who knew him like nobody else, who could probably read the swelling turmoil of his emotions clear as day on his face, was trying to pull his attention away from his own internal mess to keep him from getting lost in it altogether.

  


“Crowley…” The realization brings with it a fresh swell of tears, the demon’s name – a broken, reverent whisper on his lips.

  


“J’ssst talk to me, angel,” Crowley grumbles in feigned displeasure, uncomfortable even now to be on the receiving end of the angel’s doting, revering looks. “M’bored j’sssst lying here.”

  


Aziraphale moves his hand away from Crowley’s face, reaching for the demon’s hand instead. Grips it, fervently, desperately, clinging to it like a drowning man to a lonely piece of debris floating in the middle of an endless ocean. Anchors his gaze on the salutary distant shore of Crowley’s eyes. “Will you…,” he falters, his throat suddenly too thick to get the words out, burning in much the same way his eyes are, the stinging pressure of tears fighting to break free. He swallows them down, tries again. “Promise to stay awake if I do?” _“Don’t leave me_ ,” he means, “ _don’t die.”_

  


Crowley understands him, of course he does, and the thin long fingers flutter slightly in the angel’s grasp as Crowley attempts to squeeze back. “Sss’long assss I can,” he vows, a wan, knowing smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

  


“Alright.” He forces himself to smile back, the effort ruined by their unsteady, pitiful wobble, and he begins to talk.

  


He talks and talks and talks. Long after the Edinburgh story is over. Switching from topic to topic. Rambling about places he’d been to, people he’d met, human-made wonders he’d seen. He talks about his books, the treasured personal library he had amassed over the centuries. He recites passages from his favorite oeuvres, exalting their strengths and highlighting their flaws. He talks until his throat grows drier than the desert sand, his voice desiccated into a raspy whisper. 

Still he keeps going, mercilessly scraping out the words from his abused throat, because Crowley’s listening, he’s _listening_. Because he can still see a sliver of clouded amber peeking out from beneath the half-lowered, paper-thin eyelids; can still hear the infrequent, labored breaths that pass between the gray, blood-spattered lips. Because Crowley is still here, still clinging on. Whether to the sound of his voice or to the feel of his hand grasping his own, Aziraphale doesn’t know, but he is loath to abandon either.

  


Until Crowley speaks.

  


“Angel.”

  


His voice is barely louder than the rustle of a summer breeze in the treetops, but it’s enough to startle Aziraphale into silence. The angel waits, breath bated and heart quivering with sudden, grim apprehension, as he watches his beloved struggle to pant out more words.

  


“Remember those cliffsss in Italy? Onesss you t…took me to after Petroniusss?” Pale eyelids rise with effort, bleary slitted gaze settling on Aziraphale.

  


Aziraphale nods, not quite trusting himself to speak.

  


“We went flying there… at night. I…” The demon’s gaze turns distant, clouded further by a faraway memory. “I enjoyed it… flying with you… under th’ssstarssss….”

  


There’s a sharp stinging lump stuck in Aziraphale’s throat. It hurts to swallow. 

  


“There are cliffs by our cottage, dear. Remember?” His voice trembles and cracks over the words, desperation and tears leaking through the breaks. “We can go flying again. You and me. Any time we want.”

  


Crowley blinks, slow and sluggish, a faint ripple of a smile skittering across his lips. “I’d like that…,” he breathes out, his eyelids drooping lower, losing their struggle to stay open.

  


“Crowley!” Aziraphale panics. Abandons his grip on Crowley’s hand in favor of cupping his face as he pleads with the demon to look at him. “Come on, darling, don’t do this!” he begs, tears sliding down his cheeks to drip onto the pallid face below him. “Look!” He nods blindly toward the window where the first rays of the new day have chased away the star-studded darkness of the night. “It’s dawn. It’s already dawn, Crowley. Only two days left. You just need to hold on for two more days and…. Please, Crowley, _please_!”

  


The demon’s eyelids flutter, straining feebly with the near-insurmountable effort to rise before falling closed once more. “M’ssssorry angel…,” he murmurs – faint, rueful exhale.

  


Crowley’s chest doesn’t rise anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. Hopefully, you've been keeping an eye on them tags


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took forever, didn't it. I sincerely apologize for the wait. I seem to have hit a major writer's block and it's been a struggle to get past it. Hopefully, the chapter is at least somewhat worth the wait.

Chapter 5

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” William Congreve it was who’d coined the phrase back in 1697, the adage that had since been paraphrased and entrenched firmly in the public conscience.

Mr. Congreve had never met Aziraphale.

***

Two days.

Two days he sits on that cursed bloodstained mattress, cradling the pale, lifeless vessel that used to contain his best friend, his sole companion for the millennia he spent here on this Earth, his love, his _life_. 

Two days he grieves, keening in anguish and despair until his voice gives out and his throat burns, shredded raw from his screams. And he welcomes that physical pain, insignificant though it is. Clings to it with the fervor of one caught in a tempest of pain emotional that rages within him, clawing at his very essence, leaving wide, bleeding furrows in its wake, reminding him again and again of what he’d lost and how utterly powerless he was to stop that loss from happening. Anathema, bless her soul, tried to console him, pointing out that Crowley isn’t truly dead. He knows that. He knows that, of course, but it doesn’t really matter. Hell had Crowley back in its clutches now, weakened and defenseless without his powers. And, best case scenario, they were going to torture him, horribly, sadistically, until they brought about his complete destruction. Worst case – that torment would last forever, no intermissions, no reprieve of death. Either way they were never going to let him out again. Aziraphale was never again going to see him. 

Two days he pleads and bargains and begs of the God that wouldn’t listen to turn back the clock, to give him time, to give _them_ time. Because they had so little time to be truly together, just the two of them, on their own side, free of the restraints of Heaven and Hell that had kept them apart all those years. Because he was just beginning to learn how to let go of the millennia of indoctrination and fear; how to relax into the reality of their new relationship, how to convey to his beloved demon the true depth of the feelings he has repressed for so long… and how to atone to him for all the years of cruel rejections and faint-hearted lies. Because they deserved so much more than these ten short years, and it just wasn’t _fair_!

And then he gets angry.

It is the kind of anger he’s never felt before. A terrible, blinding fury to match the equally terrible pain that’s ripping him from the inside. It’s powerful, it’s dangerous, and it’s begging to be let out.

It doesn’t matter that it’s already too late and Crowley’s gone. Doesn’t matter that there’s no point in swinging one’s fists (“or brandishing your sword, Angel”, as Crowley himself liked to say) after the fighting’s done. It doesn’t matter, because all he can think about is that little white-walled cottage in South Downs and an enormous pair of black iridescent wings intertwining intimately with his own and the most beautiful golden eyes gleaming warmly at him in the desire-seeped darkness of their bedroom…. 

That was supposed to be his future, _their_ future. Hell had no right to take it from them. And now? Now they were going to pay for it.

The punishment lifts, as it was supposed to, two days later, when the first hint of the sunrise brushes the night-blackened skies. And he feels like crying as the dizzying, heady rush of power comes flooding back into his essence, because it’s two days too late. He soaks it in nevertheless, welcoming it like an old and dearly missed friend, as it sweeps through him, reclaiming lost ground. He feels almost complete now, the missing part of him slotting perfectly back into its rightful place, filling in the gaping void left by its absence…. Almost. 

Almost. Because there’s a Crowley-shaped hole at the very heart of his being, ripped out with a brutal, damaging force that left behind torn, bleeding edges. And it burns. It burns despite the soothing presence of his powers. Burns with all the ferocity of Hellfire. 

He clings to that pain. Harnesses it. Lets it further fuel the towering blaze of fury that rages within him, roaring for vengeance. And that dark wrath, that terrifying need for retribution that no proper, God-abiding angel would ever even tolerate in their presence – for the first time in his long, long life Aziraphale is neither scared nor repulsed by it. He welcomes it with open arms.

He hugs Crowley’s body closer, gentle, deliberately, achingly gentle despite the violent storm within him. Presses one final, reverent kiss to the ice-cold brow. Lets himself linger another moment, face buried in the matted flame-red locks, breathing in the fading remnants of his demon’s scent. He should have been faster that day, should have listened to Crowley. Should have protected his demon as Crowley had always protected him. Some Guardian he was…. But then he’d always gone too slow, hadn’t he. Well, no more. 

“Forgive me, my love,” he murmurs, voice wrecked with the grit of guilt and tears. “I won’t tarry here much longer.” 

And he won’t. There’s nothing for him here. Not anymore. His other half, his only true companion on this Earth was gone, and Aziraphale isn’t planning on spending the rest of eternity here alone. No, his continued existence without Crowley seems to him like a punishment on par with Falling, as blasphemous as that comparison may be. A memory of him finding Crowley in that bar 10 years ago after his unfortunate discorporation at the hands of Mr. Shadwell floats unbidden across his mind: a row of empty wine bottles, the uncharacteristically disheveled, hunched over figure, the broken, devastated look in the dull red-rimmed eyes – the look of a man with nothing left to lose. 

He understands it now, he thinks. Because he, too, lost everything that mattered. And now he is going to lose himself, too. But he will take that loss willingly. Along with as many of Hell’s denizens as he can.

He places the body onto the mattress with the same doting, breathless care; runs his fingers down the beloved face, pausing when he reaches his lips, letting his fingertips rest there a moment, trembling lightly against the chapped, ashen skin. 

“Goodbye, dear.”

He stands then. Takes a deep breath, rolling his shoulders as he unfurls his wings, feeling his power crackle in the air around him like lightning in the gathering storm. 

He spares a quick thought to Anathema and the others, all still asleep in the wee hours of the morning. He won’t be seeing them again, he realizes with a small twinge of regret, and he sends one final blessing their way – a parting gift on his and Crowley’s behalf for everything they’ve done. Their lives will run smooth, their course untroubled.

He extends his right hand, and a familiar sword flames into existence, the handle fitting perfectly into his waiting palm. He wraps his fingers around it, his expression darkening into grim determination, and winks out, leaving a single white feather to float slowly down to the floor.

***

He kills the first demon the moment he steps off the escalator. It was some squatty foul-looking thing with a lumpy face and sharp blackened teeth, and it made the mistake of being nearby when Aziraphale in his Avenging Angel mode descended into Hell. He is now a smoldering puddle of goo on spit and filth covered floor.

Aziraphale steps calmly over the demonic remains, spreads his wings out until they almost touch the grimy walls, his Grace flaring out in a wide, blinding circle around him, and walks on, the Flaming Sword held at the ready.

“What in Heaven izzz going on here?” an angry shout buzzes loud over the cacophony of shrieks and the sizzle of destruction that mark his forward progress, and Aziraphale turns toward it like a hound that’s zeroed in on its game.

“Lord Beelzebub,” Aziraphale acknowledges, blue eyes flashing with cold, blazing fury as he thinks back to the messily scrawled signature at the bottom of Crowley’s mildew-mottled missive. “How perfectly fortuitous! I’ve been looking for you.”

He stalks toward them, noting with grim satisfaction the way the Prince of Hell recoils from his advance, scrambling awkwardly to get out of the way until a wall blocks their path. They freeze there, squinting against the blinding light of Aziraphale’s Grace, and the angel can’t resist leaning in closer, lifting the Flaming Sword to press its edge against their scrawny pale neck with deadly, unequivocal intent.

“Whatzzz wrong wizzzz you?” Beelzebub screeches, panic flashing clear in the washed out blue of the demon’s eyes. “Are you mad?”

“I assure you, Lord Beelzebub, I am in perfect control of my faculties.” The sword presses harder, a thin trickle of inky black ichor staining the blade where it bites slightly into the demon’s skin. “Would you like me to demonstrate?”

A snarl twists the normally impassive features, fear tainting the angrily spat out threat, “You will zzzuffer for thizzz, you fool! You won’t leave here alive!”

Aziraphale’s answering smile is a cold, empty thing that has the Prince of Hell shrinking further into the wall, unsettled. “I don’t intend to,” he responds simply, as the pale eyes before him widen in distress. “The one being I cared for in this world is gone, and I mean to follow him. But I would be loath to leave this world…” He leans in further, the stench of smoking skin tickling his nose as the demon before him hisses in genuine alarm, struggling to maintain their crumbling composure in the face of certain destruction. Adds in a low, dangerously calm whisper, “without first smiting those who took him from me.” 

“We didn’t take him!” Beelzebub screeches, all pretense of composure gone as Aziraphale swings the sword for the killing blow.

“What?” The sword stops a mere inch away from the demon’s neck, the flames roaring in cheated hunger. 

“We were never suppozzzzed to,” the demon hurries on, voice strained with the urgency of panic. “It wazzzz Gabriel’zzzzz idea – to punish you two zzzze same way you tried to trick uzzzz.”

Aziraphale blinks, his mind stuttering numbly on the Prince’s words as a new kind of horror blooms in his chest. “You mean, _I_ would have been dragged down here, and Crowley…”

“To Heaven, yezzz!” Beelzebub buzzes impatiently, trying to twist away from the flames that lick at their skin.

Aziraphale’s hands tremble ever so lightly and he clenches them tighter around the handle of his sword. “I don’t believe you.”

“I can prove it!” An expression of contented sadistic glee flashes briefly in the faded blues. “Zzzey sent uzzz tapezzzz.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ruh-roh


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for torture and its aftermath. Not explicit

Chapter 6

It is the cold that wakes him, a kind of oddly familiar frigid iciness that bites into his exposed skin, painful like a burn. Which is strange, considering that the last thing he remembers is being cradled in Aziraphale’s arms – warm, protected, _loved_ …. 

And now… now it feels as though he’s lying naked on a block of ice. 

He frowns at the mental image. Slowly, laboriously peels open the lead-heavy eyelids, sneaking a bleary peek at the length of his body, stretched out before him and….

_Oh… oh! Shit…_

He’s naked, indeed. Bare as the day the Almighty Herself wove him out of the dust of the still-forming cosmos. 

But it isn’t ice he’s lying on (though he wishes it were now, oh how he wishes it were!) It’s worse, it’s so much worse. And he understands now why the air felt familiar to him; knows why that familiarity brought with it an uncomfortable, chilling sensation of doom. And all he can think is that he’s well and truly fucked.

“Ah! I see you’re awake already!” The voice, slightly high-pitched with fervently fake enthusiasm, is, unfortunately, familiar as well. 

He grits his teeth, pushes himself to move. It’s slow going, his body stiff and uncooperative like a snake during brumation, but eventually he manages to roll himself onto his knees. Stares defiantly up at the “Archangel fucking Gabriel” who smiles plastically at him from a couple feet away, violet eyes alight with glee.

“Excellent, excellent,” Gabriel croons, slapping his hands together in a gesture of perverse delight. “I was worried I’d have to use some… _persuasion_ to get you going.”

The archangel’s smile widens, shark-like, on the word “persuasion”, and Crowley can’t quite suppress a shiver of apprehension it sends down his spine. Judging by the sadistically appreciative glimmer in Gabriel’s eyes, his apprehension doesn’t go unnoticed. 

The archangel takes a step closer.

“Recognize this place?” The archangel gestures at their surroundings, the disturbingly predatory smile still in place. 

Crowley doesn’t dignify him with a response. He’s pretty sure one isn’t needed anyway. If Gabriel brought him here to this place, he already knows the answer to his question. And that means… that means… _Oh, angel, we are so, so screwed!_

“I thought you might,” Gabriel goes on, unbothered by Crowley’s silence. “Of course, we dialed down the holiness a bit the last time you were here. Didn’t want to make things too _uncomfortable_ for our Hellfire messenger.” He barks out an angry little laugh. “Imagine our surprise when we realized that we inadvertently made them less uncomfortable for you as well.” The archangel’s features sharpen, something dark and decidedly un-angelic flashing in the stunningly purple gaze as Gabriel leans in closer, his face – mere inches away. Hisses out with the pure, honeyed venom that would put any snake to shame. “Feel the difference?”

Oh, Crowley feels it, alright. The increasingly painful burn against his skin where it comes in contact with the icy surface, the uncomfortable, suffocating pressure in his lungs, the blinding, cold whiteness that sears his eyes…. He has a pretty good suspicion, however, that it is nothing in comparison with what is yet to come.

Gabriel pulls back, straightens out, snapping his fingers as he does so, and Crowley bites back a gasp as golden chains shoot snakelike up from the ground, wrapping themselves around his wrists and ankles and middle. He bucks, trying ineffectively to twist out of the unwelcome restraints, but the chains tighten impossibly in response to his movements, drag him down, slamming him forcefully back down to tether him spread-eagled to the freezing floor.

“You know, after I found out about the little trick you and Aziraphale played on us, I _reeeally_ wanted to drown you in a bath of Holy Water myself.”

Crowley can feel the archangel above him now, can feel the press of his hand, heavy and hard, on the back of his head as he squirms uselessly on the flawlessly polished surface. 

“But then I realized,” the hand on his head presses harder, crushing his face into the floor, “that it would be too quick of a death for you. One might even say it would be… merciful.” The archangel bends down closer, his breath singing Crowley’s ear. “And if there’s one thing I _don’t_ want to do is show mercy to a filthy demon.”

“Offff courssse not,” Crowley gasps out into the shining blue tile that fogs over with his breath. “That would be too… angelic.”

Retribution for his cheekiness is swift – Gabriel’s fingers tightening in his hair, yanking his head up before slamming it brutally back down onto the floor. But it’s worth it. It’s so totally worth it to rankle the wanker’s overinflated ego! At least that’s what he tells himself as ichor trickles down his lips from a broken nose, dripping onto the pristine tile underneath him.

“I have no intention of letting you die quickly, demon,” Gabriel’s voice continues to filter past the loud ringing in his ears. “So you know what I _am_ going to do?

“M’ssssure you’re gonn’… tell me,” he manages, spewing out ichor-stained spit onto the tiled surface.

The savage grip on his hair disappears, the archangel’s hand moving to lie flat against his spine, right between his shoulder blades. “I’m going to take you apart,” Gabriel promises with perfectly, terrifyingly controlled fury, “piece by demonic piece. Until there’s nothing left of you to destroy. I’m going to take it slow. And I’m going to start with your wings.”

The hand presses down once again, firm and unforgiving, the insistent, unbearable pressure increasing until Crowley has no choice but to give in, and two enormous inky-black wings unfurl from his back with a loud pop.

“There,” Gabriel sounds pleased now.

He hears another snap of fingers, and two more golden chains shoot up from the ground, wrapping themselves around the tips of his wings. He thrashes, trying desperately to break free, he growls and hisses and spits, but the chains hold fast, and soon his wings are bound to the floor, stretched out impossibly, agonizingly tight. 

A door to the side of him opens with a swoosh, and he twists his head in that direction as much as he can, and he can’t help a jolt of blinding, primal fear at the sight of two more angels that walk into the room, carrying a large bucket each. 

He knows what’s in those buckets. Knows it even before Gabriel confirms his fearful suspicion as he squats beside him to pat him patronizingly on the shoulder, adding in a mockingly reassuring tone, “Don’t worry, it’s quite a bit diluted. Would defeat the purpose, otherwise.”

Crowley’s subsequent heartfelt suggestion for Gabriel to shove those buckets up where even that blasted heavenly light won’t reach them is drowned out in a deafening howl of pure agony that rips out of his throat as the buckets are upturned over his extended wings, Holy Water eating its way through the feathers, gnawing into the delicate flesh, and burning, burning, _burning_!

He writhes and screams, half-mad from the pain that seems to intensify with each passing moment, until he knows nothing but pain, his consciousness slowly but inexorably slipping into the churning black void of it.

***

“There’zzzz only one more tape so far. You want to see?”

Aziraphale shakes his head jerkily in response to Beelzebub’s uncharacteristically subdued question, his tear-blurred gaze glued to the screen, watching in stomach-churning horror as Crowley’s desperate, convulsive movements still, the demon falling blessedly unconscious from the terrible pain. 

He watches the expression of squeamish disdain on Gabriel’s face as he gestures at twin puddles of ichor, speckled with chunks of half-melted feathers, bone and flesh, instructing the other two angels to “Clean up this mess, would you?”

Watches as he pats the insensible demon on the head, telling him with a cold, condescending chuckle, “You hang tight now, you hear. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Two days they’ve had him, he thinks. Two days. 

“There _is_ one more thing I want from you,” he says, marveling at how steady his voice sounds given the way his entire essence trembles uncontrollably in fury and pain. 

He tears his gaze away from the now blank screen, glances at the Prince of Hell, noting with detached surprise the look of almost sympathetic unease on the demon’s face. Almost as if… almost as if they were troubled by what they’ve seen. 

He dismisses the thought.

“I need you to get me Hellfire,” he says instead. “ _Now_ , if you please.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be another short chapter, but it grew a bit out of control, so I had to cut the action somewhat earlier than I had originally planned. 
> 
> Trigger warning for violence for this chapter. Some of the descriptions might be a bit graphic.

Chapter 7

Nobody stops him. Not at the entrance when he steps off the escalator, not in the obscenely white, pristine hallways as he strides purposefully toward the large meeting hall. 

It doesn’t surprise him, really. Heaven, for the past six thousand odd years, has been a forbidding, inhospitable place. Empty. And for his purposes right now it suits him just fine.

Yet he can help but think back to when Her presence was still felt around this place; when these walls were filled with warmth and compassion and LOVE, instead of the frigid burn of indifference he feels here now.

_Lord Almighty, how could You allow this to happen? Do You not see? How can You possibly approve of what Your children have become? This emptiness, this coldness, this… this cruelty that I have witnessed with my own eyes… This isn’t what You taught us to be back when we basked in Your presence and listened as You told us Your will. Was this Your plan all along? Is this the Heaven of Your legacy? Is this why You see this and do not wish to intervene?_

He wonders briefly if this is what Crowley felt like all those millennia ago when he saw what Aziraphale and the others were too blind to see and he dared to ask Her about it. And if simply asking Her questions then – before the terrifying viciousness of the punishment for the wayward angels, before the inexplicable cruelty of the Flood, before the plagues, before the wars, before the uncaring silence in the end of days…– if that was all it took to Fall, then, should She hear his questions now, he would surely not remain an angel much longer. Strangely, the thought of Falling doesn’t terrify him anymore. Not after everything he’s been through, everything he’s seen. No, he’s not afraid to Fall. Which is quite fortunate, considering that what he is about to do will more than likely damn him. And that’s fine. If Falling is what it will take to make things right, then he is more than willing to pay that price. But, first, he needs to make sure that Crowley is safe, and he can’t risk having Her hear him and brand him a rebellious angel just yet. Not until he’s done what he’s come here to do. So he grits his teeth, clamping them tight against the rebellious thoughts, and he keeps walking. 

It is only when he nears the massive double doors bound with celestial gold that he stops, his path blocked by two young angels with poleaxes held at an angle. He recognizes them instantly – the same two nameless, unimportant angels that have, on Gabriel’s order, destroyed Crowley’s beautiful wings with such callous indifference. He stares at their hands, hands clasped around their holy weapons, hands that held the buckets steady as Holy Water poured down onto the bound, writhing demon…. 

His jaw ticks, fists clenching painfully tight at his sides. “If you would kindly step out of my way,” he tells them, voice tight with barely controlled anger.

“You have no business here, traitor,” one of the angels responds with a tone of affected boredom that reminds Aziraphale a little too much of Gabriel. 

The smile he gives them in response – a sharp, predatory thing that feels awfully, unnaturally tight on his face – makes them falter, a shadow of consternation flickering over their expressions.

“You know who I am then,” he nods matter-of-factly. “Good.” He reaches into the inside pocket of his coat, pulling out a long, thin vial. Holds it out, making sure the vial’s deadly contents are perfectly visible to the now decidedly nervous-looking angels. “And I assume you know what this is as well.” He rolls his wrist a bit, grinning unkindly at the way the angels’ eyes track the bright orange tongue of flame that twists gracefully behind the glass wall that traps it.

“You wouldn’t dare,” the same angel speaks up again, but there’s no trace of the earlier self-assured smugness in his voice, doubt creeping in.

Aziraphale’s smile falls, blues eyes narrowing ever so slightly. Cold, ice cold, like his voice when he speaks next. 

“Do you, actually, believe that an angel who _dared_ to walk into Hell to pick up _this_ ,” he nods toward the vial of Hellfire that seems to glow brighter in his hand as though fueled by his growing anger, “would then hesitate to use it?” 

He watches them digest his words, their gazes flickering nervously between his face and the vial. “I’ll be honest with you,” he says, drawing their wavering attention back to himself, “I have bigger plans for this particular vial, and I’d rather not waste it on two foolish little angels. But make no mistake…” He steps in closer, teeth bared. Breathes out – a low whisper of a warning, a promise of retribution yet to come, “…you two hurt someone I care about very much, and if you _dare_ keep me out here another moment longer….”

He doesn’t finish his threat, he doesn’t have to. The angels step aside without another word, the shafts of their poleaxes scraping dully across the floor as they move.

Aziraphale doesn’t spare them another glance as he walks swiftly past them to push open the heavy door and slip inside. 

Gabriel is the first one he sees, the archangel standing with his back to the door, head tilted down in concentration at whatever it is he’s holding in his hands. The archangel’s hand jerks suddenly backwards in a sharp pulling motion, and Aziraphale’s ears pick up a strained, muffled groan that follows the movement.

That pained, hopeless sound is like a cursed blade through Aziraphale’s heart. 

Fingers clenching tighter around the vial, he takes a long, determined step forward. 

“Gabriel!”

The archangel startles, turning toward his voice, revealing the huddled figure that stands kneeling on the ichor-stained floor before him.

The room blinks out. Or so it appears to Aziraphale, at least, because, for a brief moment, everything around him seems to dim, the edges of his vision swimming out into a churning, nauseating blackness. 

And at the center of it is Crowley. Him he sees perfectly, in every stark, cruel detail. His body, naked and shivering in the too-too cold room. His eyes – a bright, acidic yellow, blown wide with fear and pain. The black ichor that stains his lips and chin. The horrible, weeping burns everywhere his skin has come in contact with the floor that virtually pulsates with holiness. The golden manacles around his wrists and the collar around his neck with just enough chain length to allow him to stay on his knees where he is, but prohibiting him from moving any further. Those knees, bleeding and blistering from being forced to bear his weight on the hallowed ground for Lord knows how long. His left arm, hanging limply at his side, ichor dripping to the floor in a steady morbid rhythm from the empty, ravaged nail beds. His right arm, trembling in Gabriel’s vise-like grip….

“It’s a very annoying habit of yours, Aziraphale, to interrupt me while I’m working,” Gabriel cuts in, casually shaking off the bloodied pliers-like tool he holds in his free hand to discard a recently ripped out nail to the floor. Turns back to his task with an aggrieved sigh and an eye roll. “I still have four more of these to remove.” 

The room comes suddenly, sharply back into focus.

“Release him.” He rocks forward on rigid, wooden legs, words twisting into a growl through the awful, mounting pressure in his chest. “Now!”

There must be something in his tone that gives Gabriel pause. The archangel stills, lets out another long, frustrated exhale. Glances once again at Aziraphale over his shoulder. And Aziraphale can see the exact moment that Gabriel notices the vial in his clenched hand, for in that instant a look of startled shock flickers across the normally impassive features, and the archangel turns to face him fully, releasing Crowley’s arm as he does so. 

The demon chokes out a broken, sob-like breath, pulling the arm toward him as much as the chains allow him, hunching over the injured limb in a pitiful attempt to shield it from further abuse. But his eyes, wide and unblinking, continue to stare up at Aziraphale with an inexplicable expression of horrified despair. He has yet to utter a single word.

“Oh, is that how it’s gonna be?” Gabriel murmurs, purple eyes flashing as he shifts his gaze from Aziraphale’s face to the golden tongue of flame moving restlessly within its glass cage. A beat and his expression shifts back into one of disdainful superiority. “Do you think I’m a fool, Aziraphale?” He tsks mockingly, nods back toward the kneeling demon. “Do you not think that if we dragged that creature up here to douse him in Holy Water that we already know about the trick you pulled?” He takes a slow, deliberate step closer to Aziraphale, towering intimidatingly over him even at a distance. “That we know you’re no more immune to,” he nods at the vial, “ _that thing_ than we are?”

“I have no intention of getting you to believe that I’m immune to Hellfire,” Aziraphale objects, holding the surprised purple gaze. “I merely wish to inform you that I have come to take my friend away from here, and I want you to believe me when I say that I will use any means necessary to do so.”

Gabriel regards him silently, grim, assessing. A moment later his face splits into a shark-wide plastic smile. “Did you know that it takes a single diluted drop of Holy Water to melt a demon’s tongue?” he asks in a seeming non-sequitur that makes something very, very cold churn unpleasantly in Aziraphale’s gut. “Just found it out myself yesterday. Incredible, isn’t it?” 

Aziraphale’s gaze flickers over to Crowley, to the thin lips pressed together into a twisted line of black-stained pain, to a wide streak of black ichor running down his chin and neck. He feels sick, the burning at the back of his throat added to the now nearly impossible pressure inside his chest that begs to break forth in a spectacular, wall-shattering scream. _How_ , he wants to shout. How could an angel, a being of Light, even _think_ to inflict such torment on another creature, let alone speak as though they _enjoyed_ doing so? How could _anyone_?

“I was gonna go for the eyes first, you know.” Gabriel keeps talking in that perfectly casual, conversational tone that sets Aziraphale’s teeth on edge, “but then I realized that, if I did that, he wouldn’t be able to see what else I’ve got in store for him. And what would be the fun in that? Am I right?” He throws his arms out, his smile – a fixed, frigid mask of exaggerated enthusiasm, as he invites Aziraphale to appreciate his reasoning. “Plus, this way I don’t have to listen to him profane these hallowed walls with his foul tongue.”

Aziraphale really needs him to stop talking. 

“Is there a… point you’re trying to make?” He’s trembling, he realizes. Vibrating with anguish and fury, his hand gripping the vial so hard, he can feel tiny spider cracks form along the glass surface. A little more, and the deadly flame will burst free to devour him whole.

“The point, _traitor_ ,” Gabriel responds darkly, all pretense of joviality gone, “is that Hellfire latches on to the closest source of holiness, no matter how…,” he gives Aziraphale a look full of disappointment and disdain, “pathetic and corrupt it may be. And if it only took one diluted drop of Holy Water to turn that serpent’s tongue into liquid goo, it won’t take but a lick of that flame to burn your worthless self into a pile of equally worthless ash the moment you open that vial,” he concludes with a condescending smile, certain in the knowledge that he’s just called Aziraphale’s bluff.

Aziraphale’s answering smile is strained around the edges, cold, deadly. “Crowley and I have played quite a few ball toss games with our godson over the years. I assure you, my throwing aim has gotten quite good. I’m fairly sure that I can douse you in Hellfire flames without getting so much as a singe.” He raises the vial higher, thumb poised over the cap. Pointedly ignores the desperate, mewling, gurgling moans coming at him from Crowley’s direction. “I’m willing to risk it. Are _you_?”

Gabriel frowns, seeming unsure for the first time. Watches Aziraphale’s face intently for some kind of tell, his own face souring at whatever it is he sees there. His mouth twists in a grimace of displeasure and he raises his hand reluctantly, the chains holding Crowley captive disintegrating with a snap of his fingers. 

Released from their hold, Crowley slumps forward with a whimpered sob of relief, trembling fingers of his less mangled hand grasping at his neck to brush the red, painful-looking welt left behind by the golden collar. 

Aziraphale lurches an aborted half-step toward him, the vial burning in his hand as Hellfire itches to get out, spurred on by the raging emotions that roll off the angel in wave after turbulent wave. For a moment, for a brief, tantalizing moment he wants to abandon his plan, wants to run to his demon, to pour Hellfire onto the worst of the wounds, to soothe, to shelter, to heal….

The door creaks open behind him; before him, Gabriel’s face splits once again into a supercilious, contemptuous sneer, his eyes flashing triumphantly as he flicks his gaze from the door back to Aziraphale. 

The moment is over.

“So, what is the plan now, then, Aziraphale?” the archangel inquires with sickly, saccharine sweetness, as he slowly begins to advance on him, hands folded regally behind his back. Behind him, Crowley mewls in distress, scrambling to rise on unsteady, wobbling legs. “Do you hope to _fight_ your way out of here, get past all those angels,” he waves a hand toward the door, “with that pitiful bit of Hellfire at your disposal?”

Aziraphale doesn’t bother turning around to look. He lets his gaze find Crowley’s instead. Locks eyes with him for one interminable fraction of a second – an ocean of ice-blue calm against an amber-bright sea of turbulent panic. _Trust me_ , he mouths. And then he rips his gaze away and lunges for Gabriel.

The archangel stumbles backwards at the unexpected attack, tries to twist out of Aziraphale’s grip, but Aziraphale holds fast, arms clamped in a steel-like vise around Gabriel’s form.

“I don’t need to fight,” he insists, pressing the vial against the archangel’s neck. “I just need to know where to aim my weapon.” He presses the vial harder, eliciting an alarmed hiss from the squirming archangel. “Crowley will walk out of here now, and you will let him. You won’t interfere, and you will make sure that no one else does either. Or I will uncap that vial right down your throat, and it is, as you said,” he bares his teeth, whispers into Gabriel’s ear a mocking echo of the archangel’s own earlier words, “Hellfire latches on to the closest source of holiness, no matter how pathetic and corrupt it may be.”

In the periphery of his vision he sees the other angels hesitate by the doorway, throwing nervous glances Gabriel’s way. He sees Crowley, frozen still where he’d last seen him, staring at Aziraphale with confusion and horror. _Move_ , he wants to yell to him. _Get out of here, move!_

“You’ll Fall for this,” Gabriel snarls, thrashing uselessly in Aziraphale’s grip. “I’ll cut your bloody wings off myself!”

“I have no doubt,” Aziraphale nods, and the simple, calm conviction in his voice momentarily stuns the entire room to stillness. Aziraphale’s voice, when he speaks next, rings loud and clear in the ensuing quiet, the words – thoughts, rebellious, anguished thoughts he’d carried with him these past few days – pour forth, releasing him from their unbearable burden. “But when you do, you better pray that I don’t survive it. Because if I do, I swear to you right here, right now, that I will come back here with all the Hellfire at my disposal, and I will burn this place into the Nothing it came from. Because this here isn’t the Heaven that I remember, and none of you are worthy of being called Beings of Light. If She were paying any attention, She would have done it Herself long ago.”

The shocked rumble of voices that erupt in response to his words is overwhelmed instantly and completely by a blinding explosion of brilliant white light that floods the space before him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know how I'm doing in the comments 😘


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: mentions of aftermath of torture

Chapter 8

There’s a shocked gasp that undulates across the room like rings that expand outwards, rippling across the surface of the water in the wake of a dropped stone. Within moments the space around Aziraphale clears, the angels scattering back toward the far wall. Gabriel, too, uses the surprise of Her arrival to twist out of Aziraphale’s slackened grip and scurry out of the way, leaving Aziraphale to face Her wrath alone.

And Aziraphale is fully prepared to do so. He’s come here knowing that he might have to do just that. So he stands tall, shoulders squared, still clutching the vial of Hellfire in his trembling hand, as he stares back into the fathomless, cosmos blue eyes of the being that molds itself out of the blinding ether _. “Punish me,”_ he thinks, knowing She can hear his every thought. _“Punish me, but let him live.”_

She watches him silently, eyes narrowed as though in thought, and Aziraphale fights the urge to lick his lips in anticipation of the punishment he knows is to come. Her gaze flicks down to the deadly vial, skittering over the spider cracks along its glass surface. She blinks, and the vial disappears, and Aziraphale’s hand spasms around the empty air, his only advantage, his weapon – gone. And then…

A movement out of the corner of his eye, a flash of pale, freckled skin.

And then Crowley is there, having inserted himself into the space between Aziraphale and the Almighty, like a weakened, badly wounded David come to confront Goliath. He stands, swaying on unsteady, trembling legs, his arms splayed out to the sides and the horribly burned, mangled stumps of his once magnificent wings jutting out instinctively to provide the angel behind him a shield that no longer exists. And he growls, he growls at Her with all the force of his abused throat, angry and protective and defiant. 

Crowley’s ready to fight Her, Aziraphale realizes with a sudden, breath-robbing clarity. For him. And he’s never felt more terrified and more in awe in his entire life.

She cants Her head to the side, a thin web of wrinkles marking the flawless skin of Her forehead with hesitant, whispery strokes. Her gaze is solemn, attentive,… ineffable. She doesn’t appear surprised by Crowley’s antics, just strangely… amused.

“You would have me cast you down for his sake,” She muses, shifting her all-too-knowing gaze back to Aziraphale, and the angel can see the way Crowley tenses at these words, another threatening growl spilling from the tongueless, bloodied maw of his mouth. “But wouldn’t you like to hear what _he_ thinks about your sacrifice?” 

She waves her hand, and Crowley chokes on a breath, one bony hand going to his mouth as he briefly hunches in on himself, shoulders heaving as if in pain. A beat and he straightens again, pulls his hand away from his mouth. Aziraphale notices that it’s trembling. 

“I think You should leave him alone.” Crowley’s voice is thin, raspy from disuse, but defiance in it is clear as day. “You can’t make him Fall. I won’t let You.”

“Oh?” One perfectly manicured eyebrow rises in mild incredulity, and She shifts Her attention to Aziraphale again. “You hear that, Principality?”

Aziraphale shakes his head, forcing down a painfully dry swallow. “No, that’s not…” He chuckles nervously, taking a step forward, arm outstretched as he tries to reach for the demon, to pull him back, pull him behind him, hide him away from Her imminent wrath. “Crowley’s just-”

Crowley sidesteps his attempt, lurching closer to Her instead. “You’ve discarded enough of Your children,” he hisses with an unsteady sway that makes him resemble a wounded snake preparing to strike. “You don’t get to do it to another. Not this one. You’d have to kill me first.”

Her lips tighten ever so slightly in disapproval or displeasure, and Aziraphale’s metaphorical heart sinks. “Don’t,” he pleads, voice trembling. Because this isn’t how it’s supposed to go, this isn’t what he’s come here for. Not to lose Crowley again. Not like this. “Don’t listen to him, please.”

The Almighty, predictably, ignores him. Glides forward, leaning further into the demon’s space. “Kill you?”

Aziraphale stops breathing.

“Can’t make me Fall twice.” Crowley shrugs, nonchalant. “And even if You could…” His lips twist, bitter, his voice steady despite the obvious tension in it, “A million-light-year freestyle dive into a pool of boiling sulfur? Been there, done that. Don’t scare me no more.” 

“Did it ever?” There isn’t judgment in Her voice. There is, however, curiosity, an oddly vulnerable kind.

Crowley seems to ponder the question. “It did once,” he acknowledges finally. “When I sought Your love and approval. When I thought it would make a difference.”

“You don’t anymore?”

Crowley’s jaw ticks. “Why should I?” he throws back, an open challenge. “You abandoned m… us. Tossed half of us out like we were nothing, some… some _trash_ to be rid of, and left the rest to play God in Your absence.” The tension in his voice gives way to an obvious tremble and he pauses, his left hand clenching and unclenching at his side as he visibly tries to pull himself together. “You won’t talk to us, You refuse to listen. You leave wankers like Gabriel to do what they think is Your will unto Your creations. You stand by as they try to destroy the one angel who remained true to Your covenants despite the fact that You Yourself have broken them thousand times over. And then, when You finally deign to grace us with Your presence, it’s just so You could cast out the only true angel You ever had.” 

He sways again, and his right knee buckles momentarily, forcing him to stagger back a step to keep his balance. Aziraphale lunges for him, but Crowley throws his arm out to hold him back, even as he slowly, laboriously straightens himself back out and stubbornly, forcefully locks his knees in place. “You do… whatever You wish to do to me,” he says, hissing out the words through gritted teeth. “But You don’t touch him.”

She watches him in pensive silence, Her eyes darkened to the deep indigo of the sky hours away from dawn. They look… sad, Aziraphale thinks. Wounded almost. As if whatever Crowley said had pained Her somehow. “I’d forgotten how stubborn you are in your beliefs, my child,” She muses as if to Herself. “Always challenging me, questioning, pushing back….”

“See why I burned his bloody tongue out? At least it shut him up for a bit,” Gabriel grumbles mulishly from his spot by the door.

Aziraphale turns to spear him with an angry glare and frowns, repulsed, upon seeing the gleeful sort of anticipation in the violet gaze. Almost as if Gabriel already knows what’s coming, is savoring the retribution that must surely follow for daring to speak this way to Her. That anticipation, that knowing – they feel Aziraphale with dread. 

Panicked, he swivels back toward Her, mouth already open to voice another (likely pointless) plea, but finds, to his horror, that he cannot speak. Cannot move either, for that matter. Can only watch in hopeless, wide-eyed despair as She lets Her gaze travel slowly, intently over Aziraphale, over Gabriel and his helpers, before it comes to settle back on Crowley. 

_Please_ , he begs Her silently, struggling in vain against the impossible bonds, as his whole essence keens in anguish. _Please don’t hurt him. Please!_

She shows no sign that She’s heard him. Moves to step flush toward the demon. “Perhaps you were right all along,” She murmurs, a troubled shadow passing over Her features like a dark cloud across a clear summer sky. “Perhaps I _have_ been away too long.” She flicks another glance in Gabriel’s direction, the corner of Her lips pinching in clear disapproval. “I never expected my children to become cruel in my absence.”

Crowley, the only one who appears to be unaffected by the strange immobilizing spell, is determined, it seems, to push his luck. “Cruelty is a learned behavior, _Mother_ ,” he fires back, blunt and chastising. “Having Your Grace ripped away, having your wings burn as you plummet to the ground… that was cruel.” He sweeps his arm out, blindly pointing at the group of frozen, huddled angels. “And they all had front row seats.”

The tiniest ripple of emotion passes across Her face, like a waft of a breeze across a lake’s glass-clear surface. “Quite right,” She exhales, and Her lips tremble the slightest bit. Then, suddenly, She raises Her hand, places Her palm flat against Crowley’s chest. Crowley makes a choked sound, his body spasming, growing rigid with shock, as Her light pours into him. 

And Aziraphale’s desperate, silent scream of anguished denial chokes off as well. Because Crowley doesn’t disappear, doesn’t turn to hallowed ashes before his very eyes. Instead, as he watches, the awful traces of holy torture that scar Crowley’s essence fade away and two beautiful wings shimmer out of the ether to unfurl behind him, night-black with sprinkles of starlit gold.

She releases him, and he stumbles backwards as if drunk, a trembling hand pressed tight against his chest. “Wha…,” he croaks, “wha’ did You…?”

“Just setting some things right,” She offers enigmatically. Then glances toward Aziraphale, beckoning him to come over, and Aziraphale complies, grateful to find that he can move again. Hurries to stand before Her by Crowley’s side, his arms itching to wrap around his friend, to pull him behind him. Her gaze flicks down to his hands, reading his thoughts as always, and Her lips pinch ineffably into a small and tender looking smile. “Take him home, will you, Aziraphale?”

She reaches toward Crowley again, taps Her fingers against his brow, and Aziraphale barely has time to grab hold of his friend, as the demon’s eyes slip closed and he sags heavily into Aziraphale’s frantic embrace.

“He’s just asleep, don’t worry,” She assures him even as he feels panic start to take over. “He looked like he needed it.” She gives Aziraphale a long, assessing look. “I think maybe you both could use some.”

Aziraphale nods dazedly, still reluctant to believe that it is over, that they are safe, that they are free. “Right then… uh… thank You,” he mumbles, clutching his friend close lest She should change Her mind. “I guess we’ll be going then.” 

“You do that,” She agrees, the skin around Her eyes crinkling. “And when you’ve both rested enough, ask him if he wouldn’t mind coming back with you to help me sort things out up here.” She looks back toward the other angels, still frozen under Her spell. “It appears I have a lot of work still left to do in that regard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me a while to wrestle this chapter into submission. I've had this confrontation in mind for a while, but it wrote itself somewhat differently from what I had imagined, so... Well, I'd love to hear your thoughts


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

“My wings used to be gold, angel, did you know that?”

_It had been days since Aziraphale stumbled out of a heavenly portal in the middle of the as yet unfurnished bedroom of their recently acquired cottage with his sleeping demon cradled securely against his chest. He had been too tired to do much then but will a bed into existence, just large enough for the two of them. He’d placed Crowley on top of the sheets, climbed in beside him, and, loath to relinquish his hold on the demon for even a moment, wrapped his arms, legs, wings, and Grace around him, cocooning him in sheaths of Safety, Protection and Love, and didn’t even notice as he drifted off into sleep beside him._

_Aziraphale remained dead to the world for three of them, and he spent a better part of the fourth day watching over Crowley as he slept. Safe, peaceful, whole. Alive!_

_“Creepy,” Crowley had said when he finally peeled one eye open a day later to find the angel watching him from across the bed. And then he’d said “oomph”, because Aziraphale had lunged at him and gathered him in and wrapped himself all around him with such fervor, such desperation, such trembling need, that all Crowley could do was hug him back, a bit stiffly, a bit clumsily, and hold on, murmuring bewildered reassurances as the angel sob-laughed into the crook of his neck._

_He doesn’t know how long they had stayed like this. Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks, perhaps? They had disentangled from each other eventually, reluctantly. Mostly because Crowley complained that his one arm that was pinned between his and Aziraphale’s bodies, had fallen asleep. So they pulled back, and they got up and out of bed. And Aziraphale took Crowley by the hand and led him through the still empty house_ (There would be plenty of time to furnish it. Later. They had all the time in the world now, he was sure of that somehow. He’d woken up sure of that), _out into the velvety smooth night air, to where the Seven Sisters stood out chalk-white underneath the inky star-spattered sky._

_“Shall we, darling?” he had asked, as they reached the top of the cliffs and he let go of the demon’s hand, letting his wings unfurl behind him._

_Crowley didn’t respond right away. Shuffled away from him toward the edge of the cliff. Stood there in silence for a long, long time, his back to Aziraphale and his face tilted up toward the dark sky overhead._

_And then he spoke, halting and raspy in the surrounding quiet, and so, so unsure…_

“I….” He frowns at the tension-taut back before him, feeling wrong-footed by the unexpected question. “No, I didn’t.”

Crowley hums, his gaze still lost somewhere in the stars above him, his voice taking on a wistful, longing tone. “She said it was appropriate for a Star Maker to have wings like that. That they would help guide me as I worked, would light my way in the darkness so I would know where to hang the stars. They were beautiful, those wings. The brightest fire-gold you’ve ever seen, with bits of stardust speckled in. Flaming like anything.”

He lets his head drop, the echo of his own words – words he had spoken to Aziraphale thousands of years ago on the Eastern Wall – stretching between the two of them, a strained, awkward reminder. 

“It burned away in the Fall. All of it. The gold, the stars, Her Love….” His voice hitches brokenly, hands clenching into fists at his sides, and Aziraphale itches to reach out, to touch him, to soothe away the hurt that taints that dear voice, that weaves through every trembling line of that tall, slender body.

“Crowley,” he begins, arm outstretched beseechingly toward him.

But Crowley doesn’t turn around. Shakes his head in stubborn refusal as he soldiers on through the words that seem to choke him. “I grew used to it. The… the darkness, the silence. Embraced it even. I… I learned to fly again. It wasn’t – we weren’t…” He scoffs, sounding so very tired, so very bitter. “…weren’t meant to. The Fallen. I mean… we _Fell_ , you know. We weren’t supposed to fly. Not anymore. But I… I missed flying too much. Didn’t want to give it up, so I just… didn’t.”

Aziraphale thinks back to that time in Rome, to the intoxicating thrill of their flight high above the darkened city, free and invisible to anyone below them, to the welcoming coolness of the night-time air, to the gentle embrace of the wind. He thinks about how effortless it felt for him, how natural, how right. And he wonders for the first time how it must have felt for Crowley to be doing something that went against his very nature, the nature _She_ had imposed on him in Her wrath.

“It hurt,” Crowley murmurs as if in response to his thoughts. “Every time. Felt like my back was on fire.”

“Every… every time?” Aziraphale feels sick. They spent hours flying that day. It felt so good, so freeing after the oppressive stuffiness of Gabriel’s office he had been summoned to earlier that day to be chided for being too soft in his dealings with humans. Aziraphale didn’t want it to end. Kept insisting on prolonging the experience well into the early hours of the morning. And all that time Crowley was in pain. “My dear boy, I–”

“Was worth it, angel,” Crowley interrupts his nascent apology, turning to face him finally, a wan smile gracing his lips. “Was worth it every single time.”

It’s Aziraphale’s turn to shake his head. “It … it isn’t,” he stammers, fumbling for the right words under the onslaught of guilt and fear. “It shouldn’t be. I… I couldn’t stand seeing you in pain. If I’d known, I….” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Grips the hem of his vest in an attempt to center himself. “I think we should go back inside,” he decides with a sharp nod. “I’ve watched you suffer enough to last me several lifetimes. I can’t watch you hurt anymore.” 

“Maybe you won’t have to.” 

The quiet words give him pause, and Aziraphale frowns, watching as Crowley takes a step closer, pulling his own wings out of the ether. They are just as Aziraphale remembers them: beautiful, enormous, black. And they are sprinkled all over with bits of golden dust. _Huh_. He thought he’d imagined it back in Heaven. Thought it might have been a figment of his fevered mind.

“She did… _something_.” Crowley stretches one wing forward, runs hesitant, shaky fingers along a spatter of gold that coils around a patch of midnight-black feathers. “They feel different, lighter, almost… almost like….” He stills, looking up toward Aziraphale, eyes wide and a bit fearful and awestruck. Presses his hand against his chest. “ _I_ feel different,” he whispers, and Aziraphale’s own chest tightens in fear.

“Different how?” Unconsciously, he takes a step toward Crowley, hand reaching out to… to stop him, to pull him back from the edge, to…

Crowley takes a miniscule step backwards, the back of his right foot balancing just off the edge. Smiles, a bit strained, the kind of smile that tells Aziraphale he’s about to do something… something crazy or stupid or crazily stupid. And then he jumps, disappearing into the darkness beyond the edge of the cliffs.

Aziraphale’s cry of alarm is swallowed up by the rushing of the wind as he leaps into the air following his demon. He sees him almost instantly – a familiar shape hovering just above the darkened waters, his great big wings unfurled to their full spread behind his back, holding him aloft, as though he’d opened them at the last possible moment, when his toes were mere inches from breaking the softly rippling surface.

Aziraphale calls out to him, urgently, shakily, already descending toward him, when Crowley raises his head, the amber glow of his eyes all the brighter against the surrounding blackness. Then Crowley flaps his wings, once, twice, rising swiftly, effortlessly to meet him, kicking up a shower of golden dust with each unhurried beat.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore, angel,” he tells him, when he comes to settle alongside Aziraphale, chuckling a bit when Aziraphale’s immediate response is to grab him by the hand and yank him into a slightly desperate, fervent embrace with a relieved, sob-like admonishment of “stupid, stupid demon”. “I swear it doesn’t,” he insists, leaning in to wrap his arms around the angel, their wings holding them steady under the starlit sky. “It feels like… like Before. And I… I feel…” Crowley’s hands tighten around Aziraphale’s shoulders the tiniest bit, a small shiver running through his frame.

Aziraphale pulls back a fraction, peers worriedly into the demon’s face. “You feel…?” he prompts, gentle.

Crowley brings one hand back toward him, taps against his chest. “Her,” he murmurs, breathless. And there’s that same look of trepidation and wonder in those brilliant golden eyes that he saw right before Crowley jumped. 

Crowley watches him expectantly, waiting for him to say something, _anything_ , but Aziraphale finds that he can’t. The thoughts, the words in his head – they’ve all merged into one jubilant, deafening salvo of “HecanfeelHerHecanfeelHerHe’sforgiven!”

“I don’t know what it means, angel,” Crowley tries cautiously, trepidation morphing into unease in the face of Aziraphale’s silence. “I… My eyes, my wings… I’m still… still a demon. Am I? Why did She…”

Aziraphale forces himself to blink out of his exalted stupor. Raises a trembling hand to brush it against the crumpled plane of Crowley’s forehead, right where She had touched him earlier, his fingers tingling from the residual trace of Her touch. “I think,” he starts, smiling into those wide-wide, beautiful, timidly hopeful eyes, “I think, my darling, She left you… _you_.”

Confusion is unmistakable in the amber-gold depths. “I don’t–”

“She said She was setting some things right, didn’t She,” Aziraphale muses, the remaining pieces of that stressful nightmare of a day finally clicking into place. “What would you have told Her, if She’d offered you to return to Heaven?”

The expression of shocked disgust on Crowley’s face is instantaneous – an intense, knee-jerk response that has Aziraphale suppressing an urge to laugh. “To live with those white-feathered twats? I don’t think so!” He pauses, flustered. Adds sheepishly, “Sorry, angel. I didn’t mean…”

“That’s quite alright, my dear,” he soothes with a barely restrained chuckle. “No offense taken.” He slides his hand down, presses it gently, reverently against Crowley’s cheek. “But I do think She might have had an… inkling that you feel that way.”

Crowley’s frown deepens. “So… what… you think She turned me into this… this accessorized demon because She thought I wouldn’t appreciate the company Upstairs?” The indignation in Crowley’s voice is as thick as the hurt, and the smile falls from Aziraphale’s face.

“No, darling,” he responds, grave and quiet and earnest. “I think that what She did is give you a choice, the choice you didn’t have before. That you are free to be who you are, who you always were.” He brings his other hand to lie flat against Crowley’s chest. “And to know that Her love will be with you always, as it ever should have been.” Adds with a solemn, heartfelt promise, “As will mine.”

The chest under Aziraphale’s hand hitches on a ragged breath, and Crowley drops his gaze hurriedly, but not before the angel glimpses a hint of moisture glistening in the corners of those honey-gold eyes. Aziraphale doesn’t comment on it. Simply holds his demon closer, letting his wings take on both their weight when Crowley folds into him, trembling and holding on for dear life.

“She wishes to see us both,” he says gently, when he feels the demon’s shaking begin to subside. “Wants our help with getting the Upstairs in order.” He smiles as Crowley pulls away to give him an incredulous, skeptical look. Nods in confirmation of his words. “Whenever we’re ready. I’m sure there’s no rush. She did say we both earned a break.”

“Did She now.” Gently Crowley extricates himself from Aziraphale’s grip, surreptitiously wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. “Good,” he says gruffly and reaches out to grab the angel’s hand. His wings flare out – a magnificent gold-spattered canvas of midnight black, and he soars higher into the starry sky, drawing Aziraphale after him. “I think She won’t mind if we fly a bit longer then.”

And so they go flying. Today and tomorrow and the next day. And if they keep Her waiting longer than is strictly appropriate for someone of Her stature, well… Aziraphale figures they are entitled to. After all, the way he sees it, he and Crowley have been due for a break like this for over 6000 years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, another WIP done. *wipes forehead* (I shall endeavour NOT to start any new ones until all or most of the other WIPs are finished. Try being the operative word here lol)   
> Thank you to everyone who read and responded and left kudos! xoxoxo I do hope the ending didn't disappoint. I was trying to give the boys a break after everything they've been through. Whatever else, whatever obligations they have to come, they'll think about it tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that :) They are due some "them" time :) Please let me know what you think in the comments.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on [tumblr](http://somethingjustsouthofbrilliance.tumblr.com)


End file.
